During James I's (1213–1276) campaign of territorial expansion in the Crown of Aragon, the king was often accompanied by his confessor, the Dominican friar Miguel de Fabra, who reportedly rode at James's side wearing his habit and brandishing a sword. James rewarded his confessor's steadfast loyalty by offering him a site on which to establish a convent in any city he chose within the king's territories. True to his word, following his conquest of the city of Valencia in 1238, the king gave the palace of the city's former Muslim ruler, Zayyan ibn Mardanish, to Miguel de Fabra as a site for a Dominican convent. The first stone for the new complex was laid by the king himself on 14 April 1239, marking the beginning of centuries of Dominican presence in the city and region of Valencia. Today, the building that once housed the Dominican convent is a parish church, with only a few remaining references in its art and architecture to its original purpose and inhabitants. Although little evidence of the medieval friars remains, careful consideration of the few extant primary visual and textual sources has revealed their historical importance in the region of Valencia and beyond.

In the decades following the establishment of their convent in Valencia, the friars of Santo Domingo became well known throughout the region, but their visibility increased at the close of the fourteenth century when one of their own, Vincent Ferrer, became involved in the Western Schism, supporting the Avignonese over the Roman popes. Ferrer rose to the position of apostolic confessor when Pedro de Luna, also a native of Iberia, became the Antipope Benedict XIII in 1395.